Countries, companies, and people who do not understand that Blockchain will transform industries, businesses, and the way we relate socially, risk being at the bottom of all development and growth indexes. With this technology also comes smart contracts and decentralised applications. Realities that will be part of our children's daily lives, but, at the moment, are keeping many people awake at night.
There are individuals annoyed and others who, on the other hand, try to influence and mitigate eventual risks of widespread implementation. But this reflection has to be made by all - by the way, the most bothered will even be part of the group of less informed people.
One of the most common questions when talking about Blockchain technology is directed at its scope of application. The best way to answer this concern is to use a figure of speech, an image. Blockchain technology is a Loop. If, on the one hand, it can serve to implement new means of payment, it also serves to secure new platforms based on smart contracts with various tokens - such as those that identify certain property or anything else, tangible or digital.
In this Loop is assimilated the internet of things, with its oracles - in conjunction with Web3 - transforming logistics, the cloud, social media, gaming, and entertainment. Further down the line, our Loop changes data storage. Our information becomes decentralised, empowering supercomputing, decentralised exchanges, stock market tokens, fintech, security, and digital identity. If we speed to the centre of the proposed image, we can find the decentralised autonomous algorithms that propose to manage ecosystems while we drink a tea quietly. We could continue to travel in our Loop and observe the impacts on automotive construction, aeronautics, markets, and artificial intelligence, but I challenge everyone to venture into this work of discovery as it will be fascinating.
This is a time for reflection as there is still time to get on this train, which is accelerating all the time. Firstly, it is up to companies, universities, and individuals to understand the foundational nature of the fourth industrial revolution. Secondly, it is up to governments to regulate and adapt the law to the new ecosystems - assuming that, for the first time in our civilisational history, the law can largely be code.
Nova School of Business and Economics wants to be an active part in building these ecosystems and, therefore, has taken a leading position in Portugal by designing the Blockchain & Smart Contracts Programme. In this training, in addition to a very solid theoretical basis, participants are challenged to master Blockchain technology and experiment with building their own smart contracts.
This text is a republication of an article originally published in Forbes Portugal - Read the original here.